1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to new cleaning preparations with which lacquered or non-lacquered surfaces of vehicles, engines, floors in workshops or other work surfaces may be cleaned and degreased, the soil removed being demulsified.
2. Description of Related Art
Preparations for cleaning hard surfaces soiled with fats or fatty substances are commonly used, particularly in the field of engineering. The corresponding cleaning operations have hitherto been carried out either with compositions which emulsify fats or fatty soils, or with so-called "cold cleaners". Cold cleaners (cf. Rompp's Chemie-Lexikon, Franck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung Stuttgart, Vol. 3 (1983), pp. 2033-34) are solvent mixtures which contain large amounts of chlorinated or non-chlorinated hydrocarbons (petroleum fractions) and which are used with or without emulsifiers and other additives for the cold removal of fats, oils, waxes, tar, etc. In cases where cold cleaners of the aforementioned type are used, the wastewaters are polluted not only with the fats, oils, etc. detached from the treated surfaces, but also with the organic solvents, particularly chlorinated hydrocarbons, so that the environment-polluting components have to be separated from the corresponding wastewaters because of legal requirements. In addition, cold cleaners containing organic solvents have the further disadvantage that inflammable, pungent or even health-hazardous vapors are formed during the cleaning operation, so that the corresponding cleaning operations can only be carried out with extreme safety and health-protection measures.
The first-mentioned cleaning preparations containing emulsifying components have the major disadvantage that, although fats or fatty soil can be removed from the surfaces to be cleaned, these soil types are emulsified in the water. Inevitably, either relatively large amounts of oils, fats or other soil types enter the wastewater, which is undesirable on account of the environmental pollution involved, or additional agents have to be added to the wastewater to break the emulsions formed in order to enable the organic soils to be separated off in oil separators. Aside from economic aspects, however, the subsequent addition of demulsifying agents involves further pollution of the wastewaters so that this is also not a satisfactory solution thereto.
DE-OS No. 25 29 096 describes cold cleaning preparations for hard surfaces soiled with fats or fatty substances which consist essentially of aqueous emulsions of ethoxylated phenols containing from 8 to 20 carbon atoms in the alkyl chain, and ethoxylated aliphatic alcohols containing from 9 to 18 carbon atoms in the alkyl chain. The proposed cleaners are neutral to mildly alkaline and combine good fat-dissolving power with safe handling by virtue of their low alkalinity or neutrality.
In addition, DE-OS No. 29 01 927 proposes cleaning preparations for removing oily soils which contain fatty alcohol ethoxylates in combination with phenol or lower alkyl phenol ethoxylates. In the cleaning operation, the fatty or oily soil types are removed in the form of an emulsion from the surface to be cleaned. Although the emulsions formed are relatively short-lived, it is several hours before they can be broken.
In addition to the above-mentioned disadvantages which attend most state-of-the art cleaning preparations, the aforementioned cleaners have such a consistency that they run immediately after application to vertical surfaces, for example, to walls or to the vertical outer surfaces of motor vehicles, and a prolonged contact time can only be obtained by the addition of a viscosity-increasing agent or by repeated treatment of the surface with the cleaner. Accordingly, the soiled surface is not kept in contact with the cleaner for a sufficiently long period so that repeated application is generally necessary.